to be or not to be? find out if you're cut out for the job.

hey cuppycakes! so you think you want to be an au pair, huh? you're thinkin' to yourself, "yeah, i'd love to travel around the world. this would just be like a long vacation... and i'd get paid!" well, you're wrong. while there are some obvious perks of being an au pair, it is still a job. and while working with kids is rewarding and wonderful and loads of fun, it can also be quite taxing. add that to the strain of being away from your friends and family, living in someone else's home, and not being able to speak the language of the area and you have a definite potential for trouble.
so, i looked at the areas of the experience that are difficult for me and those where certain qualities have been really elemental in keeping everything running along smoothly and i've come up with a little list for you guys. this "little list" ended up getting a bit lengthy, so this is going to be the first in a series of posts.

this may seem a bit obvious, but i think the most important part of deciding whether or not you could be an au pair is to look at yourself and really figure out just how flexible and adaptable you are. everyone has the way their day runs down to the little details, and not everyone is comfortable changing these little details to match those of another person. if you really aren't sure whether or not you could do this, my advice is to make a list (because my advice generally comes down to some sort of list-making). write out your routine, and make sure to include all of the little details. then, from those details, make your list of objects or practices you don't think you could change or do without. for example, if you don't think you are at all capable of waking up before eight am, i'd reconsider. if you're totally set on taking your lunch at noon, thinking you couldn't possibly eat at any other time, i'd reconsider. i know it seems a bit silly. even as i write this i'm thinking "who is that attached to their daily routine?" but i know that there are some people out there. the tricky thing is that you don't always understand that you are attached to doing things a certain way until you are in a situation where you need to change.
as an example i'll relay to you my meal time dilemma. in the states it's pretty widely accepted that you have lunch at around noon. if you're a lazy teenager, noon may be breakfast time... but when one takes part in a mildly well-structured day, lunch is had sometime between twelve and one. from my understanding here, in sicily, the usual lunch time is closer to 1:30. and in the family i stay with lunch doesn't generally begin until some time between 2:00 and 2:30. which also pushes dinner (or supper, depending on where you're from) back to somewhere in the vicinity of 9:00 p.m. yikes. my stomach has simply not adapted to this change in schedule, making for one very hungry little cuppycake. do i cry of heartache for home? no. but i do tend to keep a stash of almonds. and usually end up over-eating at meals. but whatever. my point is that in the grand scheme of things, the little details of my day aren't important to me. if i have to change it up a bit, oh well. I'M IN ITALY FOR THE SUMMER! however, through my daily interweb crawling i've come across a few blogs from girls who did not exactly share my attitude on the matter... thus the post. so, i hope this was helpful. kiss kiss and ciao for now. (another thing that, after a month, still tends to catch me off guard haha).

coming up: pictures and a full recap of my weekend on an active volcanic island! AND the next installment of my to be or not to series.